


Grateful.

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 15:05:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3294857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not Hermione isn't grateful to be so smart, she is, she really is.</p><p>She just really wishes sometimes that people would realize how much they put on her shoulders.</p><p>OR</p><p>You can call Harry Potter the Chosen One all you like, but the truth is he wasn't the only one bearing too much Responsibility.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grateful.

It isn’t that she isn’t grateful, she is.

She’s thankful she has such a gift, such an ability.

Glad that she’s able to help everyone. That it’s both her researching skills and her muggleborn background that enables her to find the answer.

You see, the war might be over, but the damage lives on. She sees it everywhere she goes. Ron, Ron tells her to focus on the positives- that they’re rebuilding. To see the new bricks and not the rubble when she looks at the castle, but she can’t help it. She’s always been grounded in facts.

None of them really spoke about it at first, what use was there after all- in speaking of the horrors they’d just faced. It was done, they were supposed to be happy, relieved, okay.

But she couldn’t help but notice the tremor when Ron drank, even before it was the source of endless broken glasses. and she wasn’t supposed to know that Harry had taken up smoking, wasn’t supposed to see how he ducked out of the crowds and came back with swollen knuckles.

Luna had been the first to crack in public, her already precarious nature falling away into paranoia and Neville had been right there to catch her and get her to a safe space, a quiet place, a place where no one else would see. But he hadn’t known what to say, what to do.

So he’d come to Hermione.

and she’s grateful, really, she is.

Because once Luna fell, Neville opened up too- about the nightmares, about the non stop shaking, about the paranoia and the difficulty thinking. and slowly they came forward one by one, broken soldiers in a war that had ended months before. 

and she’d found the answer.

PTSD.

Flashbacks, dissociation, hypervigilance, hyperarousal, hypoarousal.... She'd found out about it all. 

and she’d found the answers.

Therapy, medications, had worked tirelessly to integrate muggle science with magical resources. Dedicated herself to finding coping skills for the others in the same way she’d dedicated herself to strategies for the war. Had even worked on a pact with a group of muggle therapists and the wizarding government, finding muggleborns with therapist relatives who could safetly be informed of their world. Helped build the training so that mediwizards could help with PTSD and muggle therapists could understand the horrors of a wizarding war.

When Ginny clasps her hands and mouths thank you, she smiles and ignores the pull in her chest. She congratulates Harry when he’s able to find a job and is able to go into work every day, building a new purpose for himself. At night Ron tells her about the joke shop, about the people they’re able to make laugh again and she feels hopeful.

She’s grateful, really.

But sometimes, like now, the panic grips her and the only thing she can do is smile and pretend she doesn’t know how many empty vials she banishes. She knows of course, that one can become addicted to calming potions. She knows of course that she should stop.

But there is still work to be done.

and they need someone to do it.

and she’s happy to do it… really.

Seeing her friends succeed is a beautiful thing, seeing them get better is what she lives for.

She just prays that one day they realize she isn’t beside them anymore.

The one day someone comes back for her.

before its too late.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything in like two months for fanfiction.  
> because I feel like garbage.  
> sorry.


End file.
